We are back in Jerusalem for Friday and Saturday after a week of digging at Khirbet al-Ra’i. We will return to the dig site on Sunday afternoon for the second week.

The first week began with a talk about our squares and what the plan was for the first day. We learned a little bit about the site and then we started working.

We started by removing the sandbags from most of the balks. We wanted to be able to connect all the structure within the site and also make it safer to dig deeper.

Here you can see the balks starting to come down. We did find a few interesting things in the balk, but we can’t always share what we find. I did find a rusty bolt in the topsoil layer that probably came off of a piece of farm equipment in the mid 20th century 🙂

Our site had a forest planted on it at one time. Later the forest went up in flames and it was not replanted as they had discovered the remains we are now digging through.

I moved many wheel barrows full of dirt to the dump site. This was a constant task throughout the week.

On the last day of the each week we have a tour of the site. We are working in two areas and we share what we have been doing with the other group. It is also good to catch up on our own area as we have nine squares open that we worked in during the week.

You can see that the sit is now more open and you can see the rows of stones much better and follow the walls across the site.

It is really cool to dig up pottery pieces that have not been seen for over 3,000 years.

Now to catch up on some sleep.

Steven